Compact Car

Compact Car

(in Russian, malolitrazhnyi avtomobil) the conventional designation for passenger cars with an engine displacement of 0.85-1.5 liters and a weight of 700-1,000 kg. Compact cars are designed for personal and official use (medical and postal service).

Modern compact cars usually have forward, longitudinal placement of the engine, with rear-wheel drive, although there are also arrangements with forward transverse or rear engine placement (in which the engine is combined with the transmission and rear-axle drive), with front-wheel or rear-wheel drive, respectively. Compact cars are usually equipped with four-cylinder, four-cycle water-cooled gasoline engines (rear-mounted engines are often air-cooled) with a power of 44-59 kilowatts (kW), or 60-80 hp. The frame-supported body seats four to five; maximum speed is 140-150 km/hr; acceleration from 0 to 100 km/hr (manual transmission) on a straight, level road with an improved surface (with the driver and one passenger) is about 20 sec. Average fuel consumption is 7-9 liters per 100 km.

In the USSR, compact cars are produced by the Lenin Komsomol Moscow Automotive Plant and the Izhevsk Machine-building Plant (Moskvich-412) and by the Volga and Zaporozh’e automotive plants (the Zhiguli VAZ-2101 [foreign trade name,. Lada] and Zaporozhets ZAZ-968). Abroad, compact cars are manufactured in great numbers in Japan and in the European countries.

What's more, despite being 20 cm shorter than a C-segment Station Wagon, the Fiat 500L MPW ensures exceptional values in terms of comfort, space and load capacity, as demonstrated by a volume of 638 litres.

Furthermore, both the first and second (current) generations of Kia's cee'd C-segment vehicle for the European market have earned DfE: Design for Environment (ISO 14062) certifications, giving Kia certifications in all of major environment-related certifications from TUV Nord.

Citroen UK has given the go-ahead to the showroom configuration system to back up the upmarket supermini, which will ultimately be joined by the DS4, a C-segment contender, and the dieselelectric DS5 hybrid which will offer a combination of 200bhp with more than 60mpg and 120g/km emissions in 2011.

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